As travel editor for Southwest Airlines Spirit magazine, I've had the opportunity to visit some pretty cool cities. The best part? Now that we're adding video along with our adventures, I have the chance to show readers what's fun to do in destinations instead of just telling them. Talk about interactivity! Video brings the locations to life even more than words on a page.

As media becomes more integrated, finding ways to capture your audience beyond the pages of your magazine is essential. Producing travel videos allows us to connect to our readers on another level, while also opening the door for potential advertisers and sponsors. There have been tons of studies done in the past year focusing on how video content marketing boosts conversations, so you might want to give it a try yourself.

Having no previous experience shooting, editing, or being on camera, I can tell you one thing: When you start out, you're going to be bad. It will probably be something only your mom will like. As I look at the first video I shot compared to the footage I get now, I see a major improvement. By no means am I an expert, but on my quest to become one, I've picked up some tips that may help you out if adding a video component for your client is a possibility.

    •    Wear solid colors. If you'll be on camera, wear solid colors without patterns. Clothing can be a distraction, and you want viewers to hear what you're saying, not wondering where you bought your blouse. Patterns may also cause the camera to constantly refocus, adding another unwanted distraction.

    •    Listen for ambient noise. Shooting video requires a good ear, not just a good eye. For example, if you're shooting a chef as he's chopping food, make sure to get the sound of the knife as it hits the cutting board. If you're doing a piece of beach sports, don't forget the smack of a fist as it spikes a volleyball. Sounds like these are often overlooked but add a sense of place for viewers.

    •    Memorize lines. Don't try to wing it. If you'll be on camera a considerable amount of time, know what you're going to say and how you want to say it. I've made a habit of practicing my lines so much in front of a mirror until it seems more like my own words than a script. I got a tip from a Travel Channel host who told me to look past the lens and make "eye contact" with the cameraman, which gives more of a personal feeling. Have a friend in mind that you're talking to, which adds a more natural inflection in your voice.

    •    Keep them short. Sure, you think your footage is great, but keep in mind how quickly audiences are distracted and lose interest. People nowadays want information quickly! After analyzing our "Adventure in Orange County" video, we found that audience retention dropped to 30 percent by the end of the video. Also, shorter videos make for better mobile viewing.

For more tips and training on shooting or editing videos, check out these resources:

Mediacollege: This free website offers tutorials on everything from video production to web design.

Lynda.com: For a fee, gain access to software training videos on topics like Final Cut Pro X and photography.

Apple retail stores: Free video workshops are offered every week at most Apple retail stores.

Jay Heinrichs has been part of the Pace Communications family since 1989. As former Editor of Attaché (now US Airways Magazine) and the driving force behind many of the most innovative and creative projects to have seen the light of day from within the walls of Pace, Jay has been Editorial Director of Spirit Magazine for Southwest Airlines since 2006. He leads our Dallas-based team from his cabin in the woods in New Hampshire, making tortuous monthly visits by truck, bus and plane to impart his pearls of wisdom and generally make a creative nuisance of himself.

During the dark Northeastern winters, he finds time to write books on rhetoric, produce blogs and concoct irritatingly successful programs for organizations as diverse as NASA and Conoco Philips. He is also a key creative member of our business development team, coming up with provocative ideas for organizations to improve their communications, while gracefully allowing us to interpret and present them in the most tactful way possible.

For the past few months, Business Week magazine has been following him around the globe and recently published an excellent profile: Jay Heinrichs's Powers of Persuasion.

Have you recently asked yourself the question: which is better, sticking with a mobile-optimized site or building a mobile app? Mobile applications are nothing new, so don't worry -- you're not the only one weighing the pros and cons of keeping only the mobile website you already have or creating a branded app in addition to your mobile web presence.

The sensible answer tends to be that it depends on the client's needs and target consumer along with the content and overall mobile strategy. Generally speaking, a mobile website (if not already in place) should be considered your first step in developing a mobile web presence, whereas an app is useful for developing a mobile experience with a very specific purpose that cannot be effectively accomplished via a web browser.

Nielsen recently conducted a study focused on retail shopping apps versus mobile-optimized retail store websites. The rise in online shopping is now moving into the mobile realm as shoppers use their smartphones to compare prices, find retail locations and redeem coupons while on the go. Retailers are responding with mobile apps and websites designed to attract smartphone shoppers. It turns out that retail websites are more popular than retail apps, and that Amazon’s is the most popular retail mobile website of all. This proves that we all need to think of business as a multi-channel environment that can potentially include mobile, online, and brick and mortar locations.

So, now back to your question. Where do you start? There are a variety of factors to consider when determining which mobile experience is best.

Reach, Discoverability and Features
Start with the target audience and how they will be interacting with your brand and its content via mobile. Apps are fast, can access device-specific features like cameras and address books, and they don't need to be connected to the Internet. On the other hand, mobile optimized sites or extended mobile web features make it easier for content to be shared across social sites. Content from a mobile site can also be found in search results and mobile-friendly content reaches the widest possible audience.

Cost and Time to Release
Mobile apps typically cost more and take longer to release than mobile-optimized sites. It's also important to take into consideration varying platforms. Native apps are being used for instant increase in end-user activity and loyalty. However, as a downside this means that customized versions of each app need to be created for the different mobile platforms. A mobile site can be developed with essentially the same code for multiple operating systems while apps must be developed with different code for each operating system. Updates are also tricker when it comes to apps because of app store approval and then requiring the user to re-download. A mobile site can be updated quickly, often and with little trouble. In the end, these considerations all center around time and money.

HTML5
As anyone keeping up with the latest web trends will recognize, HTML5 is the latest version of the web language. This largely eliminates the need for plugins such as Flash and Java to deliver motion, video and audio components. Best of all, it can deliver an app-like experience on a the mobile web. You can learn more about writing your own HTML5 code from the W3School or get inspired by these fresh HTML5 site examples.

To break things down even further, consider the following end goals and constraints:

Mobile-optimized site
- spread mobile-friendly content to the widest possible audience
- quicker to produce at a lower cost
- online content needs to be found in search results
- content needs to be shared across social networks
- mobile experience is compatible across devices
- longer lifecycle since mobile websites can't be deleted
Check out these examples of stellar mobile sites.

Mobile app
- increase brand awareness using viral games
- used to perform a recurring task
- no internet connection is required
- native functionality (example: camera) is required
- a GPS is used as part of the functionality
- complex tasks need to be performed
Here are some brands that have created effective mobile apps.

In summary, if your mobile goals are primarily content marketing driven, or if your aim is to deliver content and establish a broad mobile presence that can be easily shared between users and found on search engines, then a mobile-optimized website is the logical choice. On the opposite side of the spectrum, if your goal is interactive engagement with users, or to provide an application that needs to work more like a computer program than a website, then an app is probably your best bet.

No matter your approach to the world of mobile media, the point is that you know your options and are taking mobile technology seriously. There's no doubt that your clients and consumers are doing the same, and the steady surge toward mobile we are currently experiencing will continue for years to come.

There's a massive amount of buzz coming out of fMC, Facebook's conference for marketers, with a heavy focus on new ad models and placement opportunities. The real story - the one with the greatest impact on both brands and Facebook users - is the start of the 30-day clock on the mandatory rollout of Facebook Timeline for Brands.

Just like Timeline for individual users is intended as a way to more completely tell personal stories, Timeline for brands is all about telling the brand story. The redesign shifts the focus off of the previously ubiquitous contest and promotion-heavy landing tabs, and onto the story of the brand itself as told through photos, videos, and posts.

From a content marketing perspective, here are four major takeaways to consider:

Brand posts live forever - curation is not an option
Pre-Timeline, the primary intent of brand posts was to get in fan Newsfeeds with content compelling enough that they clicked through or "engaged" (liked, shared, or commented). To get in the Newsfeed, you had to navigate the joys of EdgeRank, Facebook's mysterious algorithm for how and when brand posts appear in user feeds. Recency of the content was a huge consideration in EdgeRank, lest the post get buried under the avalanche of friend updates, social news links, and strange cat meme photos that make up the bulk of user Newsfeeds.

However, once the post was up and the initial fan interaction with it subsided, it essentially ceased to be relevant - it just faded into Facebook oblivion.

But with Timeline that all changes. The lifetime of a post just became infinite, turning brand's entire history of posts collectively into a single unifying brand story. While there will always be an element of recency to consider, it's the timelessness of posts that will increasingly influence brand content strategies for Facebook. Fans and non-fans will be able to explore past posts, dig around in old promotions, discover and engage with content the marketer thought long dead. Curation is therefore incredibly important - if your posts live forever, and tell your brand story in ways you perhaps never considered, the obligation is on you the marketer to curate that vast backlog of historical posts to ensure they tell the *right* story.

The infinite nature of posts also opens up the ability for iconic brands, and those with fascinating backstories, to connect far more deeply with their fans. Look for a lot of experimentation in the coming weeks and months with in depth storytelling through Timeline.

Social proof is the new hotness
Since the advent of the "Like" functionality, social proof has been central to the Facebook experience. With Timeline, it just got a whole lot more important, along with the need to create truly remarkable, compelling, and engaging content for your brand. Hit a brand's new Timeline page, and you'll quickly see which of your friends like it and what content from that brand they are engaging with. Or stay tuned for the next wave of advertising on Facebook, which is entirely centered on brand stories (posts) and the way your friends are interacting with them.

While getting fans to engage with content has always been a goal for brands, it's now more critical than ever.

Visuals are more important than ever
Check out XBOX's new brand page, and tell me that header image isn't dramatic. Or that Manchester United's header wouldn't give fans the chills. Try scrolling down Ford's new page and not get drawn in by the dominant, full-width photos. Posts without photos or visuals will get lost in the mix, and you can expect photos to become part of the standard post as Timeline adoption spreads. Likewise, as posts (or stories) become central to advertising on Facebook, photos that stand out among the clutter and add value to the post will become increasingly important.

Tabs just took a serious backseat to content
Until now, tabs played an enormous role in most people's experience with brands on Facebook. Hit a brand page for the first time, and chances are you saw a "like this for exclusive access!" promotion of some flavor. With the demise of the default landing tab, and the relatively obscure placement of tabs in the new Timeline layout, expect to see a lot less investment by brands in tabs and a lot more investment in the quality, depth, and frequency of their Timeline content.

Parting thoughts
Shockingly (for a content agency) at Pace we tend to think remarkable content plays an incredibly important role in telling brand stories and connecting with customers. With the advent of Timeline for Brands, it's clear Facebook agrees. Compelling brand stories, told through beautiful visuals and a deep history of curated posts, are more important than ever for connecting with your community on Facebook.

Whether you cheered for the New England Patriots this year or the NY Giants while watching Super Bowl XLVI, chances are you had a “second screen” somewhere nearby.

It is becoming increasingly common that TV viewers, magazine readers, newspaper flippers, and radio listeners are connected to a second screen (smartphone or tablet) where they engage with brand apps, text messages, or interact with friends on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest or YouTube.  This year it was predicted that roughly 60% of the 111 million Super Bowl fans were connected socially during the game on mobile devices.

Aside from taunting tweets and Facebook fights surrounding the teams of this year’s Super Bowl, the always popular and highly anticipated commercials of the big game scored big once again. And we’re not referring to the $3.5 million price tag of some 30-second slots. No, this year advertisers were looking to make the most of their money by having viewers engage with their content. As most savvy marketing experts know, this means spreading their message socially long after the TV spot and Super Bowl hype wrap-ups.

Since last year’s big game, social media has increasingly become a “normal” content outlet for marketers. Instead of the traditional “push” we have become accustomed to from marketers (ridiculous jingles, flashing sale discounts, preposterous claims), consumers are warmly accepting the “pull” model of modern marketing techniques. That is, social media marketing. Social content planted in an advertisement brings the viewer into the experience. Gone are the days of one-sided marketing conversations. Now, both sides benefit by having their messages heard through two way marketing and engaging content.

That being said, what better event to create engaging content for 111 million viewers than the Super Bowl. Thanks to the BrandBowl, a site built to gauge public reaction to the brands advertising during the Super Bowl, marketers can discover which brands created the most social engagement amongst viewers. By monitoring Twitter, people’s opinions are measured and algorithms rank the brands accordingly. The brand with the top "Brand Bowl score" after the big game is the winner.

This year’s BrandBowl for Super Bowl XlVI brought Doritos out on top with 48,498 tweets followed by H&M (43,970 tweets) and Chrysler (34,566 tweets). Overall, Super Bowl commercials and their brands were mentioned in 442,336 tweets. And while numbers for BrandBowl 2011 were still high, the use of tablet technology pushed this year’s number over the top. But that’s an entirely different conversation!

That poses the question: What will social engagement numbers look like for Super Bowl XLVII as mobile technology skyrockets? It may only be food for thought at the moment, but one thing is for sure – social content certainly gets the conversation rolling.

How has your brand or company experimented with social networks within the last year? What social networks do you think will dominate the marketing arena in the year to come?

What exactly does a "content agency" do anyway, and how does it relate to the thousands of other agencies, teams, and functions that make up the digital marketing mix of our typical client?

In the two months since joining the team here at Pace, I've been asked to explain the answer to that question more than a few times. As this is my first blog post for Pace, I thought I'd lead off with my answer: At Pace we craft remarkable branded content and unique owned media properties, and feed those into our clients' marketing and communications efforts through what I'll call the content engine.

The content engine is an imperfect analogy, and the idea of using an engine to describe marketing or communications efforts isn't exactly an earth-shattering new idea. But I've grown to love it. The idea of the content engine nicely pulls together the wide range of things we do here at Pace into a simple flow: You build the engine, fuel it, and constantly fine tune it. Strategies, sites, publications, processes, and so on are the engine itself; content is the fuel; analytics and insights are how you fine tune it.

In slightly more detail:

1. Build the Engine

Like most things in marketing, it all starts with the content and engagement strategy (or blueprint). By using research and subject matter experts you must determine what content, shared through what channels, programs, and tactics, will produce the best possible ROI for our clients.

From there we lay the groundwork, building the core platforms (the physical components of the engine). This could take the form of websites, blogs, tablet-optimized experiences, native mobile apps, guides, or branded print magazines. These core platforms will form the core of the content distribution strategy. 

Lastly, we work with our clients and their partners to tightly integrate the engine with other distribution and publishing channels. Done correctly, the content engine helps power the social media team's editorial calendar, the PR team's pitches, the relationship marketing team's e-newsletters, the field sales team's training, and so on.

2. Provide the Fuel

An engine is worthless without the fuel that powers it. In this case, that fuel is an ongoing stream of well-crafted content that clearly hits on the needs of our client in addition to the interests and passions of their customers, partners, and employees. That content must then be optimized for the channel it's flowing out through, whether that happens by applying SEO best practices to a web article, designing a beautiful print layout, or creating a highly shareable tweet.

3. Constantly Fine Tune It

Even the most finely crafted engine needs monitoring, maintenance, and adjustment to ensure it's running at peak performance. For a content engine this means analytics, continuous learning and refinement, and reporting to understand what content is working (or not) and why, in the context of the channel in which it lives.

The content engine, when used properly, is an indispensable component of the overall marketing communications effort within most companies. It connects to and feeds the insatiable demand for high-quality, targeted content required by email marketing, social media, digital properties, event marketing, and so on. I joined Pace in part because that engine is so central to the marketing success of brands everywhere, and it's exciting to help develop and shape it. 

I'll explore this idea in more detail later, and you'll see it weave in and out of future posts. In the meantime, I'd love your perspective on the content engine and what role it does - and should - play.

*Photo by braintoad via CC license

It was good knowing you. But this farewell has been coming for a while now—you know that, right? It’s not as if this is a Bolt out of the blue or a message arriving from another Galaxy, is it? And I think she’s somewhat Siri that she’s come over so dominantly sexy, but the signs have been there for a long while, and you can’t really blame her for your own self-neglect, can you?

I mean, Apps, BB—you knew what the competition was. You know I would have continued to forgive you your clunky double move to delete emails. And you know how much the IT folks protected you with your double layers of security that gave them chills as they fired up your special servers. But people were beginning to talk, you know? And it wasn’t easy for me, either. Do you know how embarrassing it is to have to pretend to know what Yelp is? And to look at your pathetic little screen and to fake that you were giving me directions to my appointment when I knew full well that you’d only share my whereabouts with the government and not with me? I don’t mind the not being cool, because I’m a business guy after all, but yes, I’ll admit it: There were more and more mornings when I was wishing I was that person at Starbucks waving my App in front of the scanner and not fumbling for my Gold card that never swipes …

You started a thousand days for me—your blinking red light comforting me with the knowledge that the world had turned during the night and that the spammers and the email newsletter providers had completed their tasks of filling executive inboxes like so many secret Santas. And you were a badge of honor for so long, I admit. With your rugged looks and reliable, predictable ways, I took you for granted the same way as you did me. And I did; I thought it was forever.

Yes, she’s a vixen, BB, that Siri. And I admit, she has a couple of annoying habits—but it’s not just her looks—that’s what I want you to understand. She seems like the complete package, BB.  She’s smart, she’s intuitive … she, she just gets me, BB. And you’d stopped, you really had.

And I’m sorry, but I won’t miss you. There, I’ve said it.
Bye, Bye, Blackberry.

One of my favorite figures of speech—one I describe in my latest book—is what I call  the Mr. Potato Head. This cataloging figure breaks down a person or object into constituent parts, and then pretends that those parts came from elsewhere.

The journalist William Allen White used this device beautifully in his obituary of publisher Frank Munsey.

“The talent of a meat-packer, the morals of a moneychanger and the manners of an undertaker.”

With just three phrases, White gives you a vivid image of the oily crook. You can use it as a form of self-deprecating humor.

When I play tennis, I have the agility of a tank, the aim of a mole and the response time of FEMA.

The Mr. Potato Head comes in handy when you want to call attention to a variety of characteristics by exaggerating them. Say you want to describe a party you went to last Saturday: a chaotic, drunken mess with bad music, badly dressed guests, and the kind of mayo-drenched snacks that give people food poisoning. Instead of droning on and on about how awful it was, try chunking up a nice Potato Head.

A lovely party! The food of a bachelor’s fridge, the music playlist of an aging hair-band roadie, and guests straight out of “Dumb and Dumber,” without the witty dialogue.

Creating your own Mr. Potato Head isn’t hard. Just take a characteristic or part of the subject you want to describe, and come up with an analog for it. Then take the next characteristic or part, find an analog, and continue until your subject is thoroughly spudded. An analog is something that’s analogous—an analogy. We’ll get to the metaphorical kinds of analogies later. In the meantime, just look for similarities that create the effect you want. If you intend to make a subject look great, use flattering comparisons. Do the opposite if you want to abuse someone or something.

The book had the prose style of the Congressional Record, the characterization of a computer manual, and the suspense of a phone book.

Recently, I started my day, as I generally do, with a cup of Earl Grey and a quick browse around Google News. Now, I wouldn’t suggest that anyone use the crazy mashup of a Google News page as a usage guide, but this headline stood out as one I particularly disliked: “Stay true to yourself, advises previous woman winner of Nobel Peace Prize.”

I understand that in the story Jody Williams, a woman, is offering advice to recent female winners of the prize, so I suppose the fact that Williams is female is somewhat relevant. Nice as it would be if it were not news that the person winning the prize is female, there have been only 15 female recipients of the Peace Prize since its inception, of 101 total individual winners. But “previous woman winner”?  Yuck.

A quick Google search for “woman president” reveals plenty of news sources that seem to prefer this construction: CBS News, Forbes, MSNBC, The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, The Guardian. And several Chicago Manual of Style forum posts vote for woman over female as a modifier.

I’m not an AP stickler, since I lean a bit more magazine-ish than some of AP’s newspaper-friendly guidelines, but I side firmly with the good ol’ Stylebook in this case: “Use female as an adjective, not woman. She is the first female governor of North Carolina.”

The late William Safire explored this topic back in 2007. “In modifying another noun,” he wrote, “woman is what the O.E.D. [Oxford English Dictionary] labels an apposite noun—explaining, even identifying, the noun it ‘stands next to’—but syntactically stronger than an adjective. Both words [woman and female] can be used as modifiers of nouns, but the noun woman has more weight.”

Hmmm. I get that “woman doctor” may cast more of a distinction than “female doctor”—or just plain old doctor—on the remarkable (gasp) fact of a woman being a doctor. But I don’t like it. To me, the distinction is emphasized precisely because the phrase sounds so off to my ear. How about “man doctor”? “Man astronaut”? “Man president”? Even the often-derogatory usage “male nurse” uses male instead of man.

“There's nothing new about this,” Safire writes. “The use of woman as a modifier dates to 1300, with the poet John Dryden …" Um, yeah, the fact that the usage has a long history does not boost it in my esteem. There are a lot of historical usages that have fallen from favor today, with good reason.

Some feminists, Safire says, avoid female as an adjective because they feel it sounds disrespectful and could refer to any mammal, not just a human woman. Again, that’s just not doing it for me. Sure, let’s avoid “lady author,” but I’m with AP and the Grammar Girl on this one: “With a perfectly acceptable adjective like female available, I don't see any reason to push woman into the role.”

What do you think? Let me know if you agree, or not.

If you’re like me, you tend to get a little antsy on planes. This airborne anxiety has nothing to do with a fear of heights or screaming babies, but rather idle time. If the flight is long enough, usually somewhere in the two-hour range, the bag of tricks I pack for myself—not unlike a mother would for her attention-deficit toddler, but with an iPod and novels rather than stuffed animals—inevitably fails me. Bored with my “toys,” my mind involuntarily wanders. And, surprisingly, that’s when I do some of my best thinking—or, as a last-ditch effort at distraction, reach for the in-flight magazine.

Even before coming to work for Spirit, one of the things I always admired about the magazine was its thoughtfulness and consideration for its audience, like that of a courteous fellow passenger. (And who doesn’t love those?) Now, as a staffer, I know the strategy behind its reader-friendly approach, which can be summed up in one made-up word: flippability, the characteristic of something one can flip through with ease. You see, each of the pages in the front of the book is specifically designed to be simultaneously simple, useful, and fun, almost as if to say to the reader, Wasn’t that great? There’s more where that came from! But all quick hits do not a well-rounded magazine make, which is why they’re supplemented with meatier feature stories. For example, “How Mya Saved Jacob,” the award-winning account of an Iraq war veteran whose relationship with his service dog, Mya, eased his struggles with PTSD. The takeaway in all this? Spirit’s glossy pages provide much more than just an escape. In fact, as evidenced by Kristin Maschka’s experience below, sometimes they even facilitate productivity. 

This week, the best-selling author and leadership consultant gave Spirit a shout-out in her blog titled “How Twitter Helped Me Beat My Monday Morning Funk.” The post details Maschka’s rediscovery of a distraction-busting article she read in the magazine—and took home with her—via a friend’s tweet. That article, or “Life App,” as we prefer to call them, was “Docent of Distraction,” which delivered a smattering of tips from Harvard Business Review columnist Peter Bregman, who recently published 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done. Maschka goes on to say what tips motivated her to enter her home office and start her day (“Every morning, transfer your to-do list to a calendar and apportion times for things.”), ultimately helping to lift her funk. (“I don’t feel as guilty at the end of the day for not having accomplished more,” she says.) We’re interested to hear if she sticks with Bregman’s pointers and, if so, what the long-term benefits are.

Are you in a funk today? We can help. Even if you’re not flying, plenty of inspiration awaits you at spiritmag.com. Try Don Campbell’s productivity playlist on for size. See? Told ya.